Work suspended on portion of 520 bridge as two investigations underway

Construction work on a portion of the 520 bridge replacement project is suspended after a large pipe carried by a crane fell and collided with a King County Metro bus Tuesday night.

Eight people were injured after the pipe collided with the bus, then knocked a highway sign down on the bus.

Flatiron Construction, a state contractor, stopped all work related to the incident, according to joint statement from the Washington State Department of Transportation and Flatiron.

To clarify, WSDOT said work has been stopped on a temporary bridge built for the project, not the entire replacement of the 520 bridge.

Flatiron is contracted for work on the SR 520 West Approach Bridge Project.

“We’re all very curious to know exactly what went wrong here so we can keep it from happening again,” Washington Department of Transportation spokesman Ian Sterling said. “We dodged a bullet on this one.”

The incident occurred during a routine operation, according to the statement.

The work stoppage follows a fatality March 12, when a man fell while working on the 520 bridge.

The Department of Labor & Industries now has two active investigations into the 520 incidents, Public Affairs Manager Tim Church said. There is a possibility more investigations – or inspections – will be opened as L&I learns more.

Church did not know if the site where the man died is the same as that of where the crane knocked the sign into the bus.

“Obviously, they both involved the 520 bridge construction project,” Church said.

L&I staff was on the 520 bridge Wednesday to inspect the site of the crane.

An inspection can take up to six months. L&I will look for safety violations and find remedies to those violations.

Church said he expects L&I will be inspecting the 520 fatality up to the six-month deadline.

The inspection into the incident involving the bus could take “months” as well, because it involves so many different entities, Church said.